Episode 5
“Don’t drink too much? Don’t worry, Jerome! I’m perfectly fine. If anything, you look drunker than me?”
Julia grinned and lightly tapped Jerome’s cheek with her index finger.
Jerome’s already red cheeks flushed even deeper.
“Well then… come here, Lily!”
Julia turned around and spread her arms toward Lily.
“Daisy! Julia’s started!”
Evan shouted in an excited voice.
Julia immediately charged at Lily and snuggled into her embrace.
“Lily… my most beloved friend Lily… my one and only Lily…”
“I think Julia’s kind of cute when she’s like this.”
Lily smiled, hugging Julia back as she clung to her.
After rubbing against Lily for a moment, Julia lifted her head and grabbed Lily’s cheeks.
Then she immediately lunged for her cheek.
“Come here!”
Julia rained kiss after kiss on Lily’s cheek.
Lily laughed as if ticklish and pried her off.
“Hahaha, stop it, Julia! Everyone, don’t give Julia any more alcohol.”
“Huh? Is that Julia’s drinking habit?”
“Yeah, she grabs anyone and gives them a tight hug. Like a free hug… Normally, it’s just a two-armed hug and that’s it, but today her physical contact seems more intense?”
“Still, that level is still pretty cute, don’t you think?”
Daisy looked at Julia and laughed.
Julia was still tightly embraced in Lily’s arms, gripping her waist firmly.
“…Cute? Last time, she clung so hard to Lily that we had to peel her off, and then she went and hugged and rubbed against complete strangers. She was a total nuisance.”
“Right! I barely managed to stop her from getting reported as a molester.”
“Really? Then we should stop giving Julia alcohol now…!”
“Evan… It’s your turn now! I’ll give you a hug!”
Julia, still clinging to Lily, looked at Evan with half-lidded eyes.
She looked like she was about to charge at him any second.
Evan held up his palms and answered firmly.
“Sorry, but I just got a crush on someone recently. Thanks, but no thanks.”
How many hours had passed…?
Julia suddenly lifted her head.
It seemed she had been sitting there, nodding off for a while.
She blinked and looked around. Most of the people at the table were already completely drunk.
“I can’t see well…”
Julia muttered quietly, raising one hand to rub her eyes.
Her entire field of vision was blurry, perhaps because the effects of the vision-improving eye drops she had put in after taking off her glasses had worn off.
“Hey, guys! Go sleep in your rooms! You were going hard from the start like rookies, how can you pass out when the party’s still in full swing?”
Lily and Chloe, who were relatively sober, shouted as they shook the unconscious Evan, Dwin, and Kristin.
But no matter how loudly they shouted, those who had already passed out showed no signs of coming to.
“Ugh… more… give me more to drink… fill my glass…”
Evan, leaning back against his chair with his mouth open, suddenly thrust his glass toward Lily.
Lily looked down at him with pity.
“Chloe, let’s take the dead ones to their rooms and enjoy ourselves more. Actually, I want to go join that table in the back.”
“Okay! Huh? Julia, you’re awake? Are you coming to your senses now?”
“Mm-hmm…”
“Hmm… But Jerome doesn’t seem to be…? Could you take Jerome to his room?”
Julia, who had been continuously rubbing her eyes, looked over at Jerome in the seat next to her.
Although her vision was blurry, Jerome was nodding off with his head bowed, his entire face and even his ears already flushed red.
“Jerome! Get up, I’ll take you.”
Julia turned her body to help Jerome.
Still not fully sober herself, Julia pulled Jerome’s body close and hugged his face tightly.
“My best friend, Jerome… My family, really, Jerome… Let’s go to your room now…!”
“…”
Roused a bit by Julia’s call, Jerome raised his arms and hugged her back.
Before long, the two were locked in an embrace, leaning on each other.
Gently swaying back and forth, anyone could see they were just two drunk people happily leaning on each other.
“Let’s go, Jerome…”
“Ju… Juli… a…”
Just then, someone approached and forcefully pried Jerome away from Julia’s embrace.
“Ah… Ju… Julia…”
Jerome mumbled for a moment, then tilted his head and fell back into sleep.
Julia looked down at her suddenly empty arms.
“Uhn?”
“You seem pretty drunk. I’ll take you to your room.”
“Who… I can’t see well…”
Julia squinted her eyes to try and identify the stranger who had suddenly appeared.
The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn’t see the face clearly from a distance.
Maybe because he was tall…?
“Can you walk on your own? What’s your room number?”
“You’ll… take us?”
Julia let go of Jerome for a moment and started to actually think.
Maybe because of all the mixed drinks she’d had, her usually sharp mind was moving slowly and sluggishly.
Her vision was poor because the eye drops had worn off.
Jerome was completely drunk and needed to get to his room.
And this man was offering to help.
“Okay.”
Having finished her thoughts, Julia opened her small clutch bag.
Inside were the two room keys she had received from the gatekeeper when entering the hotel.
Julia took out the keys and placed them on her palm. The man picked up both keys.
Then, she vaguely saw Jerome’s body, which had been slumped over and nodding off, being lifted upright.
“Thank you so much… I’ll follow behind on my own.”
Julia put strength into her legs and stood up from the chair.
She had managed to stand, but the way out of the banquet hall was blurry and hard to see.
‘Seriously, I can’t see a thing without my glasses. I need to buy those semi-permanent vision-improving eye drops soon. Even if they’re expensive, I have no choice.’
Julia thought she would just have to stick close behind the tall man and follow him, and she took a step.
However, the man’s pace was far too fast.
The distance between the man walking while supporting Jerome and Julia was gradually increasing.
As she stumbled forward mostly by instinct, her arms and knees kept banging into things.
“Ouch!”
“Oh my! Lady, please be careful.”
“Ah… I’m, I’m sorry.”
Julia had just bumped hard into a table that had stuck out because she hadn’t seen it. She clutched her sore arm and spoke.
At the small commotion, the tall man who had been walking ahead turned back and spoke to her.
“Are you too drunk to steady yourself?”
“Ah, no, it’s just that my eyesight is bad. I used eye drops, but… the effect has worn off, so I can’t see well…”
“…Then sit here and wait. I’ll come right back.”
“No, it’s okay! I think we’re almost outside. I can go by myself.”
“Don’t be stubborn…”
“No, really!!”
“…”
Julia was quite stubborn when she was drunk.
The tall man seemed to realize it was useless to insist further. He turned around and left the banquet hall with Jerome.
Julia hurriedly followed, afraid of losing sight of them.
Stepping outside the noisy banquet hall and breathing the outside air, her foggy vision seemed to clear slightly.
This should be manageable to walk, right?
She could see the carpeted main lobby of the hotel, and beyond the lobby, on the opposite side of the banquet hall, she could roughly make out the wide staircase leading up to the hotel rooms.
Julia carefully climbed the stairs, stepping on each one slowly.
“I’ll be right back, so take your time coming up.”
After glancing back at Julia briefly, the man seemed to decide it would be better to drop Jerome off quickly and come back down. He tucked Jerome under his arm and started striding up the stairs.
He quickly climbed the stairs and soon disappeared from sight.
Julia continued moving her feet little by little, and finally, she stepped onto the last step leading to the second floor and pulled herself up.
“I made it!”
After hesitating for a moment at the junction, Julia started looking for the door with her room number on it.
Room 207… Room 207…
She couldn’t see the numbers well, so she had to get close to each door.
‘What was Jerome’s room number? I remember it was on a different floor… I’m sure that tall man took him there safely.’
Passing rooms 205 and 206, Julia finally stood in front of room 207 and happily reached for the doorknob.
But she didn’t have the key.
‘Oh, right… I gave both room keys to that tall man…’
Feeling like an idiot, Julia stood leaning her forehead against the door of room 207, catching her breath.
Resting her heated forehead against the cool metal door felt surprisingly pleasant.
When the tall man came back, she would ask his name and make sure to thank him next time. Probably Jerome would thank him. He had a lot of money… And she would thank him with a hug. She didn’t have any money…
Julia waited for the man, continuing her pointless train of thought.
Now that she was right in front of the door, perhaps due to the relief of knowing she could get to the bed once she passed through it, the mental strength that had been holding her up gradually weakened.
She felt sleepy, and tired.
Or maybe the alcohol was hitting her late, making her dizzy.
“Hmm…”
As she blankly stopped thinking for a moment, the strength suddenly drained from both of Julia’s knees that had been holding her up.
Her weakened knees buckled.
“Whoa…?”
Through her narrowing field of vision, she saw the door she had been leaning her head against tilting and moving away, and the hotel wall flipping upwards.
She was rapidly collapsing toward the floor, having lost her balance.
She was falling!
Julia reflexively squeezed her eyes shut.
The thought quickly crossed her mind that the thick carpet on the fancy hotel hallway floor would make the impact less painful than expected.
“…!”
The shock of the fall wasn’t as great as she had thought.
No, there was almost none.
Opening her eyes slowly, Julia realized a beat later that a thick, firm arm had suddenly appeared and pulled her falling body into its embrace, catching her.
“Are you okay?”
Julia, now leaning against the man who had approached and caught her, just blinked her eyes.
